Topband: Building a practical vertical from Al tubing

[Peter Sundberg]

At 20:04 2006-01-04 , ac7a at cox.net wrote:

>If you have experience successfully building such an antenna I would
appreciate hearing how you did it - and of any pitfalls you encountered!
>
>Thanks & ’73, Thomas ­ AC7A


Thomas, 

I have built a top loaded vertical from old scrap aluminium that used to be
HF yagis. It pretty much resembles what you are asking for.

Take a look at www.sm2cew.com/top_band_vertical.html

Roughly it consists of aluminium tubing of the following dimensions: 20ft
of 3", 30' of 2" and the top 25ft tapering from 1" to 5/8". 
There are 3 top load wires, each one about 25 ft long. 

I use a small winch with a rope to easily raise/lower the vertical that is
attached to a hinge on a pole.

73/Peter SM2CEW
www.sm2cew.com